Sunday, May 04, 2008

Excerpt: "In 2007, according to government records, Aprodeh received funding from Oxfam America, George Soros's Open Society, the John Merck Foundation, the city of Barcelona, the Dutch embassy and a U.S. government agency called the Inter-American Foundation, among others. On Friday, the Peruvian government asked Aprodeh to explain how its NGO status allows it to intervene on behalf of terrorists, as it did in the European Parliament."

my note: Great example of how non profit orgs, others, including our own government fund ideas contrary to what the populace believes they fund. To begin exploring the subversion originally sought out by Cox Committee and the Reece Committee (1952-1955) please visit:

Thursday's vote by the European Parliament to take the Peruvian guerrilla group known as the Tupac Amaru (aka MRTA) off its terrorist list has Peru in an uproar. For good reason: The MRTA is notorious for kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians to advance its political agenda. More recently, Peruvian officials have linked it to Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian Movement," which seeks to destabilize democracies in Latin America, and to the Colombian rebel group FARC.

The Europeans' decision is maddening. But it is also instructive, in that it shows how terrorists can advance their cause with the help of nongovernmental organizations. Under such headings as "human-rights" advocacy, NGOs that share the ideology of the far left toil away daily in Peru, trying to legitimize their buddies who, behind the scenes, continue their "armed struggle." The kicker is that these NGOs are often funded by foreign governments and philanthropists.

Peruvian Congressman Rolando Sousa, who I interviewed in Lima 10 days ago, knows a lot about the problem. He headed a congressional subcommittee that looked into the activities of the Bolivarian Movement in Peru. Its findings are now before a special commission with subpoena power that is likely to uncover even more. But he's already learned enough to cause alarm.

Mr. Sousa says that Mr. Chávez's Bolivarian Movement sits on a three-legged stool. Two of the legs are legal, the third is not. The first leg is official Venezuelan "diplomacy." Discounted oil shipments have bought the allegiance of 19 countries in the region. Other ploys, such as the purchase of Argentine debt and aid for Ecuadorian energy projects, are likewise designed to create dependence and establish Venezuelan dominance.

The second leg of the stool is the effort to establish ideological control within unions and grassroots organizations. These organizations have created a series of nonprofit "associations," which, Mr. Sousa says, operate internally like political parties, with official titles like "secretary of foreign relations" and "secretary of doctrine."

The names of these NGO associations – like "Houses of Alba" (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) and "Houses of Friendship" – may sound innocuous. But, says Mr. Sousa, "What matters is their objective which, like a coin, has two sides. One side is open. The other is hidden."

George Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Institute. Openly, the associations administer eye clinics, literacy programs and health centers manned by Cuban doctors. Behind the scenes, the congressman warns, they work to indoctrinate the poorest Peruvians in the ideology of the extreme left.

The third, illegal leg of the stool is the most dangerous. Mr. Sousa cites two groups: the "Continental Bolivarian Coordinator" and the "Bolivarian Congress of the People." His committee found that both are recruiting and using the most extreme elements of the country – anarchists, terrorists and the radical left – to produce "the social conditions . . . the chaos" necessary to create the impression that democracy is not working.

Once this is accomplished, the grassroots organizations – nurtured by the NGOs – are standing by, ready to bring the extremists to power through the ballot box. The strategy was used in Bolivia to bring down the Sánchez de Lozada government in 2003 and bring Chávez puppet Evo Morales to power.

There is now ample evidence linking Mr. Chávez, the mastermind of the Bolivarian Movement, to terrorism, courtesy of the computers seized from the camp of dead Colombian guerrilla Raúl Reyes. At this time the connection, beyond ideology, between the Bolivarian NGOs and the Bolivarian terrorists remains blurry, notes Mr. Sousa. But the special congressional commission may bring the relationship into focus.

Meanwhile the work of other foreign-funded NGOs in the interest of terrorist organizations warrants urgent attention. Take the Peruvian "human-rights" group Aprodeh, which labored in Europe to get the MRTA off the terrorist list there, even though Peru still considers it a grave threat to its security.

In 2007, according to government records, Aprodeh received funding from Oxfam America, George Soros's Open Society, the John Merck Foundation, the city of Barcelona, the Dutch embassy and a U.S. government agency called the Inter-American Foundation, among others. On Friday, the Peruvian government asked Aprodeh to explain how its NGO status allows it to intervene on behalf of terrorists, as it did in the European Parliament.

No wonder the term NGO has become a dirty word in Peru. In an interview in Lima last week, Peruvian President Álan Garcia told me that "anticapitalism" NGOs funded by foreigners also play a major role in blocking development. "It's something that amazes me," he said.

Me too. Especially considering the fact that the victims of the poverty and violence that their agenda produces are Peru's most vulnerable.